Chapter 7
YELENA
It’s almost dark by the time I make it back to Morvaine Manor, change into a tank top and running shorts, and get back outside. I scowl at the fading light as I sit on the steps of Morvaine's sweeping Gothic porch and lace up my sneakers.
I don’t usually run at night. But I stayed late after my Microeconomics class, trying to reason with Professor Halbertson over his grading of my last paper.
I typically loathe confrontation. But Wren agreed that the C- I got on my argument for the benefits of micro-loans to developing nations was especially egregious, and all but forced me at gunpoint to go talk to Halbertson about it.
What made it even harder was that I refuse to bring up the personal vendetta Halbertson clearly has against me as part of my argument for a better grade.
My dad had Professor Halbertson when he was here, and when I mentioned to Dad that I had him this year, Dad cracked up and told me about the time he and Lucia’s dad, Nico, filled Halbertson’s gas tank with sugar as a prank.
Halbertson remembers. He knows exactly who I am, and I saw the way he glared at me when he called my name on the first day of class this semester.
I exhale as I finish lacing up my shoes, trying to shake off my frustrations with Halbertson—who, by the way, did not change my grade. Jerk.
Running has been a mind-clearer for me for as long as I can remember. It started when I was a kid, drowning in a mix of frustration and shame that I wasn’t taking to the ballet classes mom would bring me to.
My mother was the face of ballet in New York when I was growing up: part of a “golden era” at the Zakharova that included her, Damiano’s mom, Lucia’s mom, Galina’s dad, Wren’s mom, and Jude’s parents.
She was on billboards. Acted in movies and commercials. Presented at awards shows. Was photographed for the cover of Sports Illustrated alongside my friends’ parents and some of the most influential athletes of their time.
And then there was me. I took to ballet like a rock takes to flying.
It just never grabbed me. And no matter how many times Mom told me that she loved me unconditionally and it didn’t matter where my passions lay, I still felt this overwhelming sense of…guilt.
Like I was letting her down.
Then one day, she happened to ask me if I wanted to go with her on one of her runs around the city.
And that stuck.
Running clicked for me the way dance clicked for mom.
Ever since, it’s been my escape. It's my way to shake off whatever is bothering me and take a brief sabbatical from my thoughts, anxieties, and problems—like professors who can’t let go of a grudge with your father from twenty-odd years ago, for instance.
Or like not being able to stop thinking about a certain golden prince who showed you the darkness hiding behind his mask, only for you to realize you might LIKE that darkness a bit too much…
I swallow uneasily as I trot down the steps of the porch.
There’s got to be a psychological connection between running being my escape and the fact that my fantasies gravitate toward being chased.
I don’t really watch porn, but when I do, that’s what I’ve always found makes me squirm the most. It’s why I got sucked into Galina’s world of MaskTok with “morally gray book boyfriends” who chase and pin down their leading ladies, who grab fists of their hair and make them “take it like a good girl”.
Maybe there’s some sort of crossed wiring in my head, where the high I get from running triggers the desire or fantasy center in my brain.
A flush ripples over my cheeks.
Or maybe you're deranged, and this is you looking for a scapegoat.
Either way, I need to get running so I can put some distance between me and my dark, swirling thoughts involving Achilles Drakos.
It’s darkened from twilight to night when I finally take off at an easy gait.
I skirt the woods around Morvaine and take the gravel path down to the ruins of Hawthorne Hall.
From there, I run across the campus itself, past Roche Lecture Hall and the glowing lights of Ravencroft Library.
I cut through the beautiful main campus green and make a loop around the gorgeous, Notre Dame-inspired St. Aldric’s Chapel, which was here before Knightsblood was even founded.
Past the faculty cottages, I finally turn onto the main path that runs the length of the huge cliffs towering over Connecticut Sound below.
As always, the rhythm of my footsteps moving in time with my pulse puts me into a calm, Zen-like headspace. I listen to the gravel crunch under my sneakers, and revel in the sheen of sweat over my neck and back that makes me shiver a little as the night air teases over my skin.
A low crescent moon gleams over the ocean to my right, and I inhale the salty sea air mixing with the pines on my left, letting the rest of the world fade away.
At least, that’s the goal.
But something is stopping me from achieving it.
Not just me still brooding over Professor Halbertson’s grudge against my family.
Not just the dark, venomous, all-consuming fantasies of Achilles pinning me to the wall and wrapping his strong, veined hands around my throat, his knife glinting in front of my wide eyes as he slips his fingers into my panties.
The feeling persists, creeping up my spine until it’s impossible to ignore.
I’m being watched.
My breathing loses its cadence as I quickly glance behind me. But there’s no one there, even though I could swear I felt eyes on the middle of my back. I try to regulate my breathing again, legs and arms pumping, feet eating up the path.
The feeling comes back.
I whirl with a choked gasp, my breathing wild and erratic, tendrils of my hair plastered to my forehead. My skin erupts in goosebumps and a nervous tremor ripples up my spine as my eyes stab into the darkness of the path behind me.
Nothing there.
Nobody chasing me. Nobody watching me. Nobody hunting me.
Just the trees off to the side and the soft crash of the waves against the rocks at the bottom of the cliffs.
Maybe I am deranged.
Or maybe running alone, at night, was a way worse idea than I thought.
I’m still glancing warily back at the path behind me as I launch myself forward back into my run…
…And immediately go crashing into a broad, muscled chest.
I scream as I lurch away from it. The heel of my shoe skids across some loose gravel, and I gasp sharply as my center of gravity shifts and I start to topple back.
A veined, muscled, tattooed forearm jerks out, and an iron fist grabs the front of my hoodie in its tight grip. My body spasms as the arm keeps me from falling onto my ass, jerking me back upright as my heart leaps into my throat.
“What the fuck?!” I blurt, my voice shaky. I try to swallow, but it’s like my throat has forgotten how to work. Same as my feet have forgotten how to stand, and my heart has forgotten how to beat at a regular, even tempo.
My eyes snap up, and my pulse skips as I find myself staring into Achilles’ dark, devil eyes.
Right now, wrapped in shadows, the golden boy doesn't look so golden.
The darkness almost visibly throbs around him.
The moonlight which was so romantic and serene a moment ago now feels cold and grim as it glints off the bulging lines of his broad, muscled shoulders straining the black fabric of his hoodie.
The rest of him is clad in black jeans and black boots, and that same scent of mint, clove, and masculine spice fills my nostrils.
But it’s not just all that which has me seeing anything but the “golden prince” of Knightsblood. It’s the fact that, same as last time, on the path near the woods, I’m not looking at Achilles Drakos, Para Bellum president, captain of the football team, darling of the Drakos family.
I’m looking at a devil.
A captivating nightmare.
Venom, poured into a gorgeously shaped vessel.
And I get the impression that this is a side of Achilles that no one ever sees.
It's not a dark mask he puts on.
It's him without any masks.
I don’t know if that’s an exciting or altogether terrifying epiphany.
“W-what are you doing?!” I blurt.
Wow, smooth.
A shiver drags like a blade up my spine and the fine hairs on the back of my neck prickle as he looms over me.
“Why are you running alone at night?”
God, that voice. It’s gravel and honey. It’s stony, flinty, rough, and yet finishes so smooth that it makes me feel like a cat luxuriating into her owner's touch when his sentences end.
Well, it's official.
I am deranged.
He’s frowning at me as I swallow the thickness in my throat and find my voice.
“I—because I like to run?”
“At night,” he growls deeply. “Alone. As a woman.”
I suck on my bottom lip and draw a shaky breath in through my nose. “I mean, it’s the Knightsblood campus. It feels…safe enough?”
Am I asking him, or telling him?
Achilles lifts a single dark brow. “And yet you kept turning around to check if you were being followed.”
I frown. “You saw that?”
He nods.
“Because you were the one following me?”
The ghost of a smile flickers over his chiseled jawline.
“You look nervous,” his velvety voice rumbles in the dark space between us.
When I don’t answer, because I don’t know how, he moves a little closer to me, and another chill drags up my spine.
“Do I make you nervous, little prey?”
I exhale shakily. “I—I don’t know.” My gaze snaps to his. “Maybe,” I say quietly.
“Really. Why is that.”
“Maybe because of what happened the last two times our paths crossed?”
That ghost of amusement glints at the corners of his lips again. “And what did happen those times?”
My face throbs with heat.
“You know,” I mumble.
Achilles cocks a brow. “Is this where you accuse me of assaulting you again?”
Something I can't identify slithers and coils around my center.
God, he is so beautiful right now. The golden boy stripped of his mask, with such a gorgeous shadow across his face.
He’s intimidating and scary.
But…